Future smart manufacturing should be flexible, versatile, scalable, modular, and plug-and-play in contrast to the conventional static sequential manufacturing paradigm. This future manufacturing paradigm has stringent requirements of ultra-low latency, highly flexible connectivity, high reliability, and high computing intelligence. However, the current long end-to-end latency, limited flexibility, and the lack of computational intelligence in shop floors impose critical barriers to achieve such a future manufacturing paradigm. The advent of 5G and future 6G (NextG) wireless communication holds the key to overcome these challenging barriers and reshape future manufacturing fundamentally. This project will develop a NextG-enabled manufacturing (NextGEM) research framework, an open-access NextGEM cyberinfrastructure, and use-inspired testbeds to enable and demonstrate transformative manufacturing capabilities. The outcome of this project will not only advance the knowledge base of ultra-low latency manufacturing but also translate the enabling technologies into broad practice. The created knowledge, methods, and tools will transform a wide spectrum of latency-critical manufacturing sectors and other industries with similar challenges to realize significant business values such as improved operation efficiencies, reduced defects, and emerging new business models to drive growth.
Narayan Mandayam, Yingying Chen and Ivan Seskar received NSF grant
Narayan Mandayam, Yingying Chen, and Ivan Seskar received a new grant from National Science Foundation titled "FMRG: Cyber: Manufacturing USA: NextG-Enabled Manufacturing of the Future (NextGEM)."
This is a large project with a total award of $2,999,632 for 4 years. Yuebin Guo from MAE is the project PI, Narayan Mandayam, Yingying Chen together with Jinggang Yi and Weihong Guo (both from MAE) serve as Co-PI, and Ivan Seskar serves as Senior Personnel.
More details of the project can be found at:
Congratulations to Narayan, Yingying, and Ivan!